Pure Destiny

by Aja James

  Tal could feel the tension immediately ease out of the other warriors. It sounded as if Dalair, whom he was meeting for the first time as one of the Elite, was “back.” Somehow, his turning had been reversed.

  They moved to where the Paladin indicated as the warrior crouched down, holding Sophia’s body in his arms.

  “She’s unharmed,” he said quietly, though his voice vibrated with emotion.

  Tal could viscerally feel his connection to the young queen. His worry and fear for her well-being. Most of all, his devotion and unconditional love.

  They all felt it. It was the connection between Destined Mates.

  “What happened?” one of the Dark warriors asked.

  “I dispatched the first wave of enemy soldiers in the woods towards the east,” Dalair reported in a clipped, efficient speech.

  “Here, we encountered the next wave. I estimated two dozen, but before I was halfway through, more arrived, surrounding us from three sides. There were too many, coming at us all at once. I couldn’t keep the line of defense.”

  He paused; Tal could almost hear the pounding of his heart and the buzz of adrenaline.

  “One moment I was locked in battle with two enemy soldiers with two more approaching from either side—I was braced for a severe wound; there was no way I could have extricated myself without sustaining injuries in that tangle—and the next moment, everything froze.”

  “Froze?” someone asked.

  “I was hit by a blast of heat. It didn’t hurt me. It’s like... I was in the eye of a storm. But I saw with my own eyes how it knocked all of the soldiers to the ground, as if they were flattened by an invisible hand. The farthest ones took more impact; the energy gained strength as it radiated outward...”

  Tal heard murmurs of agreement. Their helicopters bore the brunt of the blast at the outermost point. It had been powerful enough to send them into tailspins.

  “…sent some of them flying several feet. And here they remain, still in their corporeal forms, still alive, but unconscious. Just like Sophia.”

  “These are Medusa’s turned soldiers?” Lord Wind asked.

  Tal remembered his voice. He used to be Medusa’s Blooded Mate when he was still called Enlil Naram-Anu. He’d been her henchman for as many millennia as Tal had been her prisoner before he finally severed ties.

  Someone crouched on the ground and checked a body, Tal could perceive from the motions and sounds.

  “This one’s eyes are blue, not black. Is it possible that the energy blast…whatever it was…changed them back?”

  “We will know when they awaken,” Cloud said. “We cannot leave them here. They will have questions, and we need answers as well.”

  “Looks like this search and rescue mission just broadened in scope,” one of the Chosen noted.

  Tal frowned. Something was wrong.

  As the others debated the best course of action to bring all of the unconscious fallen soldiers back to the Shield or Cove, Tal concentrated his senses on the surroundings.

  “Where is Benjamin?”

  Everyone froze at his query.

  He heard their movements as they looked around. He, too, closed his eyes and harnessed his Gift to search for signs of the boy.

  Finally, Dalair uttered the dreaded words that Tal already knew:

  “He’s gone.”

  *** *** *** ***

  It all unfolded like a movie.

  Except, he was in the movie even while he was watching.

  Benji was holding Sophia’s hand. She seemed to need the reassurance.

  He looked up at her, worried.

  Her eyes were so very dark, no white in sight. It was as if he was staring into an abyss, more unfathomable than the endless space that Benji read about in his encyclopedias, online, and from what he learned in science class at school.

  There was nothing frightening about space. Well, unless you considered the lack of oxygen… and food… and water…

  Anyway, he only ever thought about space in the context of being safely ensconced in a luxurious spaceship (not the real kind from NASA, but the cool kind from Star Wars, Star Trek and The Avengers). Or sitting on a hill with Mom and Dad while camping outside of the city to gaze up at the countless stars.

  Space was vast and unknowable, no matter how mankind tried to puzzle it out. There would always be new things to learn, new galaxies to discover. Space was not frightening.

  Not like the yawning, lightless void that oozed from Sophia’s eye sockets.

  Shudder.

  The ugly greenish veins spreading everywhere on her skin didn’t help either. Nor did the sharp black nails that lengthened from her fingertips.

  So, he grasped her icy hand and tried to pull her back from the abyss like he always did. He tried to send positive thoughts her way, coax her from her enraged trance back to his side of the world. The bright, sunny side where everyone got along and happiness reigned.

  It’s not that Benji never felt sad. He did.

  He missed his Lamby blanket whenever he misplaced it. He lamented that it faded with every wash, that the little pink face with smiling eyes sewn into the hood with ears got less recognizable as time went on, even though it still made him happy every time he saw it.

  He was upset when Olivia passed away. She was his birth mother, but he barely remembered her. When she’d been alive, she hadn’t spent much time with him. Not voluntarily, anyway. It’s as if he reminded her of someone she’d rather not remember. It wasn’t until she got cancer that she started paying more attention to him. As if the incurable illness, late as they’d discovered it in her, had given her the passion that she’d always seemed to lack for life.

  But Benji knew that didn’t mean she wanted to live.

  No, Olivia had been looking forward to death. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he always had. He didn’t feel upset that she died, per se, because he felt as if she was happier now; her soul was at peace. It’s just that he wished he got to know his mother better while she’d been alive.

  Benji blinked in remembrance.

  When Uncle Tal first came to stay with Mom, Dad and him at their apartment, Benji had wanted to cry every time he looked upon the male. Even though Uncle Tal never showed his pain outwardly, always saving his smiles and chuckles for Benji, and regaling him with wonderfully vivid bedtime stories, Benji felt the warrior’s pain viscerally. He had so many scars, Uncle Tal. They’d never fade. But it was the hurt on the inside that was worse. Benji could sense it like a living thing.

  Uncle Tal was getting better though. He was finally healing. And this made Benji incandescent. No one deserved happiness more than Uncle Tal.

  Except for one other…

  A man Benji liked to consider his friend (and, really, Benji didn’t like to consider anyone his not-friend).

  Erebu. Ere.

  He always made Benji laugh with the funny way he talked, the words he said that he didn’t mean. As well as the words he didn’t say that he did mean.

  But most of all, he made Benji’s heart ache with the beautiful darkness and light mixing and mingling in his sapphire eyes. If ever there was a being who needed to be loved, it was Ere. It exasperated Benji to no end that Ere himself didn’t think so.

  All this was to say—Benji wasn’t happy all the time.

  He wasn’t totally ignorant of the injustices and cruelty and pain in the world, no matter how his extended family and friends tried to shield him from harsh realities. But he liked to look on the bright side of things. And there always was one.

  Always.

  Darkness was merely the absence of light. One couldn’t exist without the other.

  Oh, some might argue that they could, and Benji had spent many hours debating philosophically with various anonymous strangers online on these matters, and others, in various forums. But in Benji’s view, one couldn’t exist without the other. He had all kinds of arguments…

  But the point being: where there was darkness, there would always be
light. And personally, he liked the bright side better.

  That wasn’t to say that he didn’t like the darker side, because he did. Dark could be comforting, calming, still, silent. Sometimes, when he saw or sensed darkness in people, he wanted to embrace it. Embrace them.

  He embraced Sophia’s darkness now. Well, at least her hand.

  She turned to look down at him. It took a moment for her to truly see him.

  A little bit of the darkness engulfing her eyes slowly receded. And then they widened, as if she was surprised by something he said.

  Benji frowned a little. What had he said?

  He remembered sending calming thoughts her way, but suddenly, something overtook him. A wave of dizziness that made him see stars.

  And then—

  The world stopped.

  Time froze.

  Like Quicksilver in the X-Men comics, Benji experienced everything in freeze-frame. Only he could move, it seemed.

  He looked around him in a trance.

  Sophia’s eyes glowed amber now, like burning gems in her face. Light radiated from her limbs and face, even from her slightly parted mouth. Her wavy, shoulder-length hair surrounded her head in a soft halo.

  She’d let go of his hand.

  The bad guys had frozen too. Three of them were engaged in battle with Sophia’s Mate. Dalair was his name, Benji remembered. The Paladin.

  It was surreal how they were paralyzed in the midst of a gruesome scene, axe and sword raised, faces contorted in masks of death and violence, Sophia’s Mate answering their blows mid-strike with arms braced and jaw locked.

  Stranger yet, a white dragonfly, looking suspiciously like the one Benji had seen when he was water coloring with Ere at the Shield, fluttered in a zig-zag path right in front of his face. Seemingly on a casual flight through the forest, unconcerned and untouched by the violence at play.

  When everything else was frozen, this flitting movement was especially jarring to witness.

  Benji turned away from Sophie to follow the path of the dragonfly. But after taking a few steps, the creature climbed up, up, into a bright ray of sunlight that filtered through the treetops. Benji squinted against the too-bright light, no longer able to watch the dragonfly’s ascent.

  And then, the strangest of all things happened.

  The familiar, yet foreign, tinkling of bells drew Benji’s attention toward the shadowy interior of the forest. A woman’s laughter. Faint and distant.

  He’d heard that sound before. It made his heart squeeze with hurt, at the same time that it filled him with a pleasant nostalgia.

  Images like frames in a movie filled his head:

  A humble mud hut on the outskirts of an old village. And by old, he meant old. A village from ancient times.

  A small garden with vegetables and a few tufts of wildflowers. In the back corner, a chicken coup.

  The effervescent laughter of a little girl, mingled with the low, deep chuckles of a man.

  A shadow that passed over the lone window of the hut, its wood shutters strapped open on this sunny day.

  Benji ventured closer. He had to see.

  What did that shadow look like? Why did it beckon him?

  And then, as if it heard his thoughts, the shadow finally coalesced into a recognizable form. The unmistakable shape of a woman, leaning partly out of the window.

  Long, silken black hair and pale, exquisitely rendered face.

  She was a stranger to Benji, and yet she was not. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her before, because he would have recalled if he had—she was unforgettable. Yet, somehow, he recognized her all the same.

  The tips of her full lips pulled up in a winsome smile. Again, somehow he knew that it was so rare, he felt like he was looking upon a shooting star. It beckoned him closer.

  Come to me…

  Benji couldn’t help it. He followed that smile, those dark, beautiful eyes and familiar voice, into the shadows of the forest.

  There was such unfathomable darkness in her gaze. He wasn’t afraid of it. He wanted to embrace it.

  But then, something came over him, wrapped him tight in suffocating mustiness—

  As darkness embraced him first.

  *** *** *** ***

  They decided that Dalair, Tal, Eli and Rhys would go after the boy while the others figured out how to get the still unconscious soldiers and Sophia back to the Pure and Dark Ones’ bases for further observation. Dalair himself would pilot one helicopter, thereby saving the human pilots from risking their mortal lives on a high-risk mission, and also allowing four warriors to ride instead of three.

  Dalair cradled Sophia’s body against his chest and held her close for a few moments, his lips against her hair, eyes closed in a prayer to the Goddess for her safety.

  He hoped she would not awaken to find him gone. He hoped he would return to her side sooner than that. For, even though it seemed that she’d managed to keep the Destroyer back this time, it had been a close call.

  Dalair remembered vividly the sight of the Darkness overwhelming Sophia’s consciousness. Though he wasn’t there to witness the aftermath of the havoc she wreaked upon ancient Persia and Egypt, he read about the devastation in history books. Stories varied as to what could have swept through the lands, both supernatural and natural. But deep inside, he knew the real cause.

  It was risky to separate from her when she might not be fully stable, but Dalair knew in his bones that he had to do everything in his power to save the boy he’d been ordered to abduct. Whether or not he’d been mind-controlled, he was responsible for Benji’s plight. He had to reverse it. If the Master wanted him so badly, Dalair didn’t need a reason to keep him from the Hydra’s clutches.

  The boy was important. He must be saved.

  At the same time, though the surest way to keep Sophia “balanced” was for Dalair to be with her, they couldn’t live in fear of separation. He couldn’t be her crutch, shackled forever to her side. He was a warrior; he had a role to fulfill just like her.

  He was the Paladin.

  With that thought, he handed her up to Cloud’s waiting arms as the Valiant stood in the helicopter to receive her. The two human pilots, Cloud and Sophia would take the second helicopter back to the Shield immediately, so that her condition could be assessed by Rain. Valerius and Ryu would stay with the fallen soldiers and wait for extraction. A team was already on the way.

  Assembled in the first helicopter, Dalair, Tal, Eli and Rhys discussed the plan of attack, or rather, rescue, as Dalair maneuvered the aircraft into flight. For this was a very different mission than the one the Pure and Dark Ones executed before, which resulted in Medusa’s demise.

  The focus would be Benjamin. Whatever it took to bring him safely back, away from the new Master’s clutches. Though they didn’t know precisely why the boy was targeted for abduction, they could only imagine the vile machinations of the Hydra’s mind.

  The makeup of this team was decided upon after some deliberation. Though Dalair loathed to leave Sophia’s care to others, hated to be separated from her especially when danger still surrounded them from all sides, he was the one best positioned to lead the rescue team.

  Although the Master’s new lair was unfamiliar in its location, he’d been in others. He had a sense of what to expect and how to get inside with his hyper senses. By now, they all had the coordinates that Dalair was given by the tech master, but that was merely a location; it didn’t give them the key to the Master’s lair.

  Tal was the next choice, for he had possession of the laser sword that ended Medusa in the recent attack. It could only be used once, and Dalair cautioned him not to cut off the remaining head, for if the Master was to be believed, two would grow back in its place. Nevertheless, Tal could still inflict significant damage to the body, tail and legs with a strike from the sword.

  And, too, the General likely wouldn’t have taken a back seat in the rescue mission no matter the reasoning. Dalair could sense that he needed to see to it personal
ly that the boy was brought home safely.

  Eli’s ability to turn to wind and air made him a no-brainer to bring along. Both defensively, because none of them, including Dalair, knew the full scope of the Hydra’s powers. As well as offensively, because he could snatch the boy if needed right out from underneath the monster’s nose. Or even from between its jaws.

  Finally, Rhys was chosen for his ability to turn into the Great Golden Eagle. He could fly at least two of them to safety in a pinch. Three, if absolutely needed. And if the two helos’ interrupted approach to the clearing was any indication, knocked back by the force of Sophia’s power, Rhys would be their safety net if the aircraft malfunctioned.

  As Dalair flew the helicopter toward the Master’s lair, the warriors within kept their silence, each immersed in his own thoughts.

  Finally, Eli spoke.

  “In all the millennia that I have existed, all the wars that I have fought in and led, never have I encountered such creatures as this. I thought it was only myth. Such monsters are as intangible to me as the gods themselves.”

  Rhys slanted a look at him, sitting on his left side in the narrow two-seater behind the cockpit.

  “Have you come across animal spirits like me before?”

  “No.”

  “Likewise, shadow warrior,” the eagle spirit grunted. “I haven’t lived nearly as long as you, but I’ve only heard legends of Elementals before. Never thought I’d meet one in the flesh. Between you and Ramses, a man’s liable to get an inferiority complex Gift-wise. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you transform to wind or shadow. I haven’t seen Ryu in action either…”

  He trailed off, subtly and teasingly suggesting that the shadow warriors were all hype, no substance.

  Eli didn’t respond, but Dalair sensed the male’s amusement.

  Rhys turned to Dalair and Tal in the cockpit.

  “You both have tangled with the Hydra before. Tell us what to expect.”

  “The remaining head, if I am not mistaken, spews hellfire,” Tal replied.

  “And that’s different from regular fire, how?” Rhys sought to clarify.

  “I cannot tell you how it looked to the naked eye, but I can tell you what I recall about its descriptions in oral legends. And I can tell you how it felt, though I hadn’t been in its direct blast.”